At first I was like, "Holy shit, RIFT. Isn't that that awesome FPS that's set on a massive boat and has parkor inspired movement!" And then I was like, "Oh. Yeah I'm thinking of Brink aren't I..."
RIFT VIP Key Giveaway
- Thread starter Spinwhiz
- Start date
I received a code for VIP access just before this beta 5 event and at first.. I wasn't keen. I went on and made a warrior and was immediately overwhelmed by what soul to pick, after a bit of a look around I went with void knight and set off. I was a little annoyed because I discovered that I had just picked a rogue from WoW, and then quickly enough I was introduced to picking my second soul, paladin. It gave me the skills from the paladin skillset on top of my own, which were just about the same identicle skills to what I already had. So I got bored and left. I then came back and gave it a further go with a mage, got up to 8 or so and it seemed alright. I'd definately just taken a dislike to the talent system without looking to the future and thought "yeah you can get some good combos with this". Though playing a mage got a little boring and I left that too. To cut the story shorter than it could be, I chose a cleric (druid/justicar/shaman mix) which it simply something that can be healed from attacking and do a few little heals, it matched my kinda playing style.
Now, it is very much like WoW. Throughout the Beta everyone was either crying that it was a duplicate of WoW, or people trying to deny it was.. both sides of which was annoying. I've played a few MMOs before and they have been a bit different, but Rift has the same layout, settings, text, and.. well let's just say that you can have something that looks similar to something then something that's gone out of it's way to look like something, hell even the key bindings are practically identicle.
I did quests, which were pretty boring. They were like warcraft but just not as deep, not so much quest chains as just random quests, generally telling you to go back to the exact same place a few times. While you may get this a bit in WoW, you generally get a few quests which go to one place at the same time then a quest chain that tells you to go somewhere else. Rift is different and simply wants you to visit each little breadcrumb trail at least twice.
The rift openings were good, they didn't get in the way but they were everywhere and were fairly frequent, allowing you to quickly team up with people who are near the event with a simple click and a pretty exciting set of battles. Throughout the levels this did not get boring for me, and I think I probably got a few levels from this alone, as I got tired during the questing. You also get these planar items of different qualities which you can save up and use them to buy armour from faction vendors. Unfortunately I have to compare this to WoW again and say it's very similar to the whole undead events leading up to the first opening of Naxxramas.
The PvP was also good, you can get killed pretty quickly and there were balancing issues but that's expected with these games.. I still found it fun. The first one you get into is very much like Warsong Gulch (WoW) meets Oddball (Halo), and it damages you which tends to stop the player from just running back to their base and safeguarding it, as they usually die and it resets to the middle of the battlefielg. There was then The Codex which became available which again is just like WoW's Arathi Basin. Unfortunately i didn't get to experience world PvP on this PvP server.. Oh and you can also level doing PvP which is a fantasic feature if you want to take a break from questing, sure people who like to make low level alts and put the best gear on them will be disapointed when they get levelled up into a higher bracket, but the PvP should be for everyone.
I can't fault the first dungeon, I've enjoyed these things on other games and liked the fact that people don't have to just be a solid healer in this. Together as a group I had some skills that helped with healing, mainly from damage done, the rogue had some healing from his bard soul, the mage had something and the warrior had an Oh SHI-Full HP skill, as well as the mage's pet AND another warrior being to offtank if necessary. I know this is easily done in a lower level dungeon, but if they keep this up in most dungeons through the game then I'd applaud them.
I really got into it as the beta was ending, though I actually feel like there's not much else for me to play! I only reached level 25 but I hope for everyones sake that the levelling slows right down and they've got a lot of end game in store. There are people who are huge fans and would eat their dog to prove it's better than WoW and everyone should switch to it, but it was no different when Age of Conan came out. I hope this one is successful though, not just survivable but really successfull.
One downside is that the defiant female guards wear no underwear! - http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?39214-Pantyless-guards-Shame-on-you-Trion (probably NSFW heheh)
Now, it is very much like WoW. Throughout the Beta everyone was either crying that it was a duplicate of WoW, or people trying to deny it was.. both sides of which was annoying. I've played a few MMOs before and they have been a bit different, but Rift has the same layout, settings, text, and.. well let's just say that you can have something that looks similar to something then something that's gone out of it's way to look like something, hell even the key bindings are practically identicle.
I did quests, which were pretty boring. They were like warcraft but just not as deep, not so much quest chains as just random quests, generally telling you to go back to the exact same place a few times. While you may get this a bit in WoW, you generally get a few quests which go to one place at the same time then a quest chain that tells you to go somewhere else. Rift is different and simply wants you to visit each little breadcrumb trail at least twice.
The rift openings were good, they didn't get in the way but they were everywhere and were fairly frequent, allowing you to quickly team up with people who are near the event with a simple click and a pretty exciting set of battles. Throughout the levels this did not get boring for me, and I think I probably got a few levels from this alone, as I got tired during the questing. You also get these planar items of different qualities which you can save up and use them to buy armour from faction vendors. Unfortunately I have to compare this to WoW again and say it's very similar to the whole undead events leading up to the first opening of Naxxramas.
The PvP was also good, you can get killed pretty quickly and there were balancing issues but that's expected with these games.. I still found it fun. The first one you get into is very much like Warsong Gulch (WoW) meets Oddball (Halo), and it damages you which tends to stop the player from just running back to their base and safeguarding it, as they usually die and it resets to the middle of the battlefielg. There was then The Codex which became available which again is just like WoW's Arathi Basin. Unfortunately i didn't get to experience world PvP on this PvP server.. Oh and you can also level doing PvP which is a fantasic feature if you want to take a break from questing, sure people who like to make low level alts and put the best gear on them will be disapointed when they get levelled up into a higher bracket, but the PvP should be for everyone.
I can't fault the first dungeon, I've enjoyed these things on other games and liked the fact that people don't have to just be a solid healer in this. Together as a group I had some skills that helped with healing, mainly from damage done, the rogue had some healing from his bard soul, the mage had something and the warrior had an Oh SHI-Full HP skill, as well as the mage's pet AND another warrior being to offtank if necessary. I know this is easily done in a lower level dungeon, but if they keep this up in most dungeons through the game then I'd applaud them.
I really got into it as the beta was ending, though I actually feel like there's not much else for me to play! I only reached level 25 but I hope for everyones sake that the levelling slows right down and they've got a lot of end game in store. There are people who are huge fans and would eat their dog to prove it's better than WoW and everyone should switch to it, but it was no different when Age of Conan came out. I hope this one is successful though, not just survivable but really successfull.
One downside is that the defiant female guards wear no underwear! - http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?39214-Pantyless-guards-Shame-on-you-Trion (probably NSFW heheh)
*Pfff* I had a VIP key before it was cool. Now where did I leave my PBR?
(Kidding)
Two questions: Do we have a time/date for the next round of testing, and will the keys that you gave out the first time around still be valid, or do we need to re-apply?
EDIT: Please redact the first question, I just saw the listing on the linked page. Apparently I've caught the dumb. Still, the key question stands.
(Kidding)
Two questions: Do we have a time/date for the next round of testing, and will the keys that you gave out the first time around still be valid, or do we need to re-apply?
EDIT: Please redact the first question, I just saw the listing on the linked page. Apparently I've caught the dumb. Still, the key question stands.